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DIG Meeting, June 3, 2017 The June meeting was opened by President Dave Erickson who noted several visitors and new members. The first in a possible series of Light Room SIG sessions takes place Wednesday June 7, 9 a.m. at the Arabian Library. Dave inquired as to the groups’ interest in a program featuring cellphone photography for both iphone and android users. Dave also asked for a show of interest in Astrophotography, a possibly technical program but an interesting one. The response was positive from the group on both ideas. Mike Isenberg introduced our guest speaker, Nicholas Papagallo, owner of Parkwood Photography, 22nd and McDowell, Phoenix, where he specializes in Headshots and Commercial Photography. Nick’s landscape photographs have appeared in Arizona Highways Magazine and a host of other publications. Nick also originated the Photographers Adventure Club or PAC, an organization dedicated to Connect, Explore, Create and Improve the photography experience. At his Studio, Nick teaches Light Room and offers other photography classes. He heads up workshops mainly in the Southwest regions. Ten Ways to Capture High Impact Images, the theme of his programs, lists Ten Tips to achieve High Impact. Tip #1 Research. Thoroughly research your subject before setting out to photograph using all the tools available to you. Google, google Maps, the Photographers’ Ephemeris, Dark Site Finder, to name a few. Tip #2 Be at the right place at the right time. A tool called the Green Laser $35 at Frys Electronics aids in determining the direction and time of light. Tip #3 Compose. Composing a landscape ahead of time and putting something in the foreground is important. Tip#4 Wake early and go to sleep late! Tip #5Know your Gear. Know your cameras capabilities and limitations. Develop muscle memory Tip#6 Travel light. Lose the tripod except when absolutely necessary. Tip #7 Blend In. Blend unobtrusively into your environment. Smaller cameras are best as they do not intimidate people. Tip #8 Tell a Story. For your image to have impact, let the subject evoke the imagination in the viewer. Tip #9 Travel with other photogs! Tip#10 Back Up. Nick recommends Multiple hard drives both in house and off site. Extra Tip. Have Fun! Shoot from your heart. Nick uses Canon equipment but relies daily on his micro 4/3 mirrorless cameras, the Lumix GH 4 and GH5. He has no problem with printing 20×30 sized images. His camera is readily accessible from his belt using the Spider Holster. Finally, Nick quotes Ansel Adams, “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” Thank you Nick for a very interesting program. DIG Meeting, May 2, 2017 President Dave Erickson called the meeting to order introducing several guests. Following was a discussion of book publishers in view of My Publishers soon going out of business. Pick-a-Boo and Amazon were mentioned as possibilities. Susan Byrd recommended and showed a product she uses for transporting large printed images. Available from Gallery Pouches, it is a full depth mailer, soft-sided, with or without closures, the large size, $13-$15. Mike Isenberg introduced our two 'inhouse' speakers, Jerry Cox and Lynn Thompson. Each of our members delivered a very informative and very interesting presentation. Jerry, an artist, a sculptor and college professor themed his talk around Creative Photography. Jerry, like the artist that he is, explained that he does not see things but, shapes. He looks for shapes both light and dark, abstract patterns, and uses the rule of thirds paying attention to perspective in his composition of either painting or photography. He stresses there should be a story in a successful photograph, one that delivers impact. The viewer would experience the ABC's, The Antecedent, the Behavior and the Consequence as he views the image—example being his grandson at Little League and what goes on before, during and after the play. Like Monet, don't paint things, paint shapes using lights and darks. We can do this by converting our color images to black and white to access how well we have achieved this end. Lastly, simplify our images for greater impact. Jerry calls himself a Kamikaze Photographer, taking pictures of almost everything he sees, for documentation at the very least. Following our break, Lynn Thompson spoke on Competitions and Judging both of which he is highly involved. He declares himself a 'camera club photographer', not a professional, nevertheless he enjoys competition. Lynn's credentials are lengthy belonging to numerous camera clubs, photography boards of directors and committees. Among them are the Arizona Camera Club Council or ACCC and the Photographers Society of America or PSA. Lynn's involvement in Competitions throughout the nation and internationally has earned him many medals and citations despite his declaring himself not really competitive! Lynn's presentation, sprinkled liberally with his humor, no doubt peaked the motivation of many of us to pursue competition with new interest. Our thanks to both of our Club members for their outstanding presentations. DIG Meeting, April 4, 2017 The April Meeting was called to order by President Dave Erickson who introduced our guests. The topic of SIG'ss came up with a basic Light Room SIG to be offered at the Arabian Library for a $5 per session fee. The two Basic sessions will be on the Library and on the Develop modules. Intermediate and Advance Light Room techniques will be offered in additional SIG Meetings. The Team offering the Mentor Program will be alerted upon interested persons contacting Dave with an email citing the area in which they need help. Mike Isenberg introduced Cindy Marple as our guest speaker. Cindy, known as “the Bird Lady” for her exceptional bird photography is currently President of the Phoenix Camera Club and a world traveler capturing bird images and sharing with interested groups. Her Power Point presentation began with images from South Georgia Islands, the Falklands and Antarctica. Cindy uses the Sony A7 R11 camera as well as a Canon D80 explaining her Sony choice due to the dynamic range of that camera. She uses a Metabones Adapter to make possible the use of her Canon lenses. She shoots manually due to the rapid changing of the light as she catches birds in flight, shutter speeds from 1/1500 to 1/3200, ISO at 800 and matrix metering. She does not work with catalogues but relies on an identifiable folder structure. Cindy uses Capture 1 for much of her processing and Photoshop for layers, focus stacking, HDR, spot removal, healing brush and content aware. She relies on Vivesa, Define and Silver Effects Nik filters as well. Her images are saved as tiffs which become her Master copies from which she applies any adjustments while preferring natural colors, much as what she saw at the time of the image shot. Do see Cindy's work at her website: cindymarplephoto.com. Images of the many countries visited and the vast numbers of wildlife, sea life and landscapes are truly amazing. DIG Meeting, March 07, 2017 President Dave Erickson opened the March meeting introducing guests and announcing the revival of SIG groups. Light room and Photoshop classes are offered by volunteer members. Members are asked to email their Light room and Photoshop requests to Dave. Following up on the suggestion of Peer review of photographs, we are looking for ideas how to implement this either by postings on the website or at meetings? Your ideas are wanted. We are also looking for in house volunteer speakers to offer programs for our monthly meetings. Please call or email Dave Erickson if you are willing to offer a program for our monthly meeting. Mike Isenberg introduced our guest speaker, member, Kathleen Reeder. The theme of her program was “What do We do with All Those Photographs”. We all accumulate hundreds, thousands of photographs which then reside on our computers, unseen by anyone. Kathleen described two great ways to publish inexpensively and easily. One of Kathleen’s suggestions is the eBook for sharing your beautiful photos. Smugmug, a free service offering unlimited storage, uses jpegs out of Lightroom with your plugins and seamlessly imports your galleries into your ebook. The great thing here is, Smugmug does the resizing for you. Smugmug offers templates for the Homepage, menu options, contact pages and destinations so the user can view the desired site to view. The alternative ebook is Kindle Comic Creator. The Kindle app on your computer or device is required from which you set up your account and download the free software. The constraints are 10 mb files, 2:3 format, all verticals and no cropping. This format works great for ipad viewing. Working through Amazon, the publication of your ebook is in one day! Amazon will then market your book. Tutorials online are available. Kathleen’s last suggestion was to merely create your images as a pdf and send immediately to friends. Check out Kathleen's website for free information, tips on lenses, videos on composition and various teaching tips. Kathleen is a highly motivated and very enthusiastic speaker and! Thank you! DIG meeting, February 07, 2017 President Dave Erickson called the meeting to order and introduced two new members. Further, he introduced the subject of continuing our Mentoring Program. Thus far, seven members voiced interest in Light Room mentoring and 3 for Photoshop. If you are interested, send an email to Dave Erickson so stating and describe your problem area. Based on contact information he provides, you will then make that contact and arrange your time and place with the mentor. Special Interest Groups, SIG groups represent another opportunity to learn any aspect of post processing in either a single or series of instructional meetings. With enough interest, these sessions will be announced as to time and place. Mike Isenberg introduced our highly anticipated speaker, Piper MacKay. Piper is a wildlife and portrait photographer, skilled in Infrared Photography, widely published for her work while living in Africa for a number of years. Susan Byrd took an opportunity to acknowledge Piper’s excellent workshops, her skills and dedication to her work. Piper’s work in IR was featured in a recent Black and White special issue of Outdoor Photographer. Her emphasis is on photographing what speaks to you, what excites you. Background and Light are the primary considerations. Arrange your shot to remove all distractions such as horizon, other distracting elements that add nothing to the images. Making the image pop with a diffused and contrasting background will draw the eye to the subject. For Portraits, Piper instructs that Aperture is the greatest tool for a great background. Her examples were 100 macro lens shot at @2.8. Shoot with Light over the shoulder. If your subject is static, you should shoot with sidelight. If Bright light, under expose and expose for lightest area. She shoots Portraits at 1/60 shutter, ISO 500 with 2.8 lens. Adjust the ISO up and down for your perfect light. Creating Motion with Still Images. Piper advocates, if at midday, shoot 1/60 and underexpose. Use a panning technique to create blur, slowing down the shutter speed and use side lighting. Above all, get it right in camera to minimize post processing which by the way, she basically uses only level and curves and sometimes hue and saturation. Other tips included, use evaluation metering almost all the time. Spot meter when you have only on an extremely bright background. Piper uses Cloudy White Balance to warm images or dials in 2800 Kelvin when she wants a cool effect. Finally her suggestion for using Photoshop is only when you want to be creative. Her examples here were African Wildlife transformed into pencil sketches, very impressive. Check out her website and her workshop offerings. Thank you Piper for your excellent presentation. DIG Meeting, January 3, 2017 President Dave Erickson called the meeting to order. There were no announcements thus, he introduced our guest speaker, Lee Hendrickson. Our speaker showed us a unique and extraordinary facet of photography most have never considered. Being both a research scientist of 35 years in Biology and a photographer by way of formal training, Lee combines art and science to produces beautiful photomicrographic images both abstract and contemporary. Lee uses an Olympus BH2 microscope to which he attaches a Canon 5D 20 mp camera and captures images of his own lab grown crystals of just about anything that can be spread on a glass slide, wine, chocolate, coffee, allowing it to dry first and then photographing. The images are then captured directly onto a tethered laptop where the translucent crystals reveal the natural process of light refraction producing an amazing array of colors. The challenges for Lee are managing time, temperature and humidity in growing the crystals and depth of field, vibrations and lighting in photographing the crystals. The size of a pinhead, these crystals, magnified 1000 to 3000 times will produce an image 16X20 for Lee's Fine Art Gallery. His images can be seen at his Website, Photography Of Crystals, www.photographyofcrystals.com. Lee also appears in fine art venues and fairs and is represented in Collections throughout the U.S. Our thanks to Mike Isenberg for seeking and scheduling this fascinating guest speaker. Appreciation to Lee Hendrickson as well. DIG Meeting, December 6, 2016 President Dave Erickson opened the meeting thanking everyone for the outstanding display of their published books. Further announcement included Camille’s resignation as Official Greeter. The search continues for her replacement. We continue to search for a new meeting venue as the Library rent increase has been 300% over the recent years. At this rate, should we remain here, dues will be $50 per year for individuals and$85 per couple. Our speaker today was Joel Hazelton, young, up and coming photographer whose work is seen in Arizona Highways. His presentation included a beautiful portfolio of his landscape work, unique because of where his camera takes him in little seen places in Arizona followed by a demonstration of his posts processing techniques. Joel backpacks into places where no trail exists and canyoneers into areas that defy most hikers. He seeks waterfalls and finds them following rains in places most of us have never seen. Joel shoots mainly wide angle using his favorite lenses, Tokina 24-70 and 17-40 on a Canon body. Focus Blending is an often used technique where he will shoot 3-5 exposures, blending in Photoshop using layer masks resulting in complete sharpness from to back. He prefers to work in Light Room as there is no image degradation. In LR, Joel principally uses Clarity, Vibrance and some Saturation sometimes a vignette and then into Photoshop for output sharpening. He is a proponent for Tony Kuyper’s Luminosity Masks action panel. He often will create his own layer mask and demonstrated how to manually create your own. Joel’s favorite hiking and shooting locations include Bear Mountain, the east fork of the Black River, South Mountain, Haigler Creek, Hells Gate, Christopher and Tonto Creeks, the Hassayampa Wilderness Preserve, Queen canyon in he Kofa Mountains, Fish Creek and Tortilla Creek in the Superstitions, Blue canyon on the Hope Reservation and Coal Mine Canyon on the Navajo reservation and Ramsey Canyon in Southern Arizona. Many thanks to Joel and his inspiring presentation. DIG Meeting, November 01, 2016 (Notes provided by Betsy Aguirre) Richard Buchbinder announced his photography together with Rose Erato is hanging in a new restaurant, Tommy’s Place at 2827 E Bell Road. They will be offering workshops in Cuba and Africa in 2017. They also offer the McDowell Mountain workshop in May of 2017. Contact Richard or Rose for more information. A request is made to help find a reasonably priced and easy to get to location for our meetings. Rent is currently $350 per meeting. If interested in a class in videos, please contact Michael Isenberg. The Speaker today was Rex Short who spoke on the subject of flash photography. His website is www.rexshortphoto.com DIG Meeting, October 4, 2016 President Dave Erickson opened the October meeting with a reminder for those interested , Shutterbugs meets 7 p.m. the second Tuesday of the month. Contact Bob Kaufman for more information. Mel Strauss spoke about his trip to Ethiopia and his outstanding book, People and Places of Ethiopia on display this morning. Mel and his wife traveled with a National Geographic Tour for the scenic Northern part of the country but outlined their own itinerary for a visit to the primitive southern part of Ethiopia. Most interesting was the culture of the people in the south, a most primitive existence likened to life 2000 to 3000 years ago. Mel captured the essence of the entire country in a colorful and very interesting book published by My Publisher. Susan Byrd showed and talked about the small books by Mosiac. Susan touts this small, inexpensive book as great for trip remembrances, holidays and special events as gifts to family and friends. The packaging is unique and has great eye appeal. Focus Stacking was guest speaker Bruce Taubert's presentation. Bruce is a regular contributor to Arizona Highways, a professional photographer conducting photo workshops and publishing books on photography. His outstanding book, Wild in Arizona published with Coleen Muink-Sperry targets areas throughout the entire state for shooting wildlife and wild flowers together with maps, tips and specific locations for the outdoor photographer. Google that title to read reviews and place an order for this well done book. Macro Focus stacking is Bruce's emphasis so throughout his interesting 2 hours, he generously provided technical information in making the shots, He discussed the different effect produced by high and low f-stops, wide angle lenses, f-stops, and zoom lenses while encouraging the use of a tripod when practical. One method of focus stacking is achieved by turning the lens barrel by tiny increments, dozens of times to get the near, midrange and distant elements in sharp detail. Yet another method relies on the Helicon Remote which automatically advances the focus. The Cam Ranger allows the user to set the number of frames to be shot automatically. Bruce recommends Live View together with Mirror lock up for good results especially when used with the remote release. The processing is done in the computer by purchased software or even in Photoshop itself. Bruce uses both Zerene Stacker and Helicon Focus. Zerene produces only tiff or jpeg and works best with difficult edges while Helicon Focus produces a raw file and works best with smooth edges. Bruce has yet another book coming soon on Macro work. His Arizona Highways workshops feature Macro work as well. Check out his 2017 schedule. Thanks to Bruce Taubert for his interesting presentation. DIG Meeting, September 06, 2016 The meeting was opened by President Dave Erickson. Bob Coffman invited people to participate in Shutterbugs explaining the format, 20 slides per person, any subject, to share with the groups. Gathering at the Village Inn for pie and coffee typically concludes the evening for most members. Tanju showed a large, 20×60 pano print created from a $400 Panasonic LumixFZ1000 jpeg, at a cost of $107.00. Tanju encourages a visit to www.cgproprints.comto see their offerings and prices. Rose Erato and Richard Buchbinder once again have outstanding workshops planned for the current year and into 2017. They are conducting the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy Photography Workshop, scheduled for November 17 and 19th. All fees benefit the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Registration is $125. Call 480-998-7971 for reservations. Richard and Rose will take you to Cuba in March of 2017 for an event filled 9 day tour. The Serengeti Migration is the feature of the Tanzania Photo Safari with Richard and Rose scheduled for May, 2017. Contact Richard at 480-998-0603 or Rose at 602-361-5043 for more information, or contact Jacque at Strabo Tours: 607-756-8676, or Jacque@strabotours.com for more information. Flyers for each of the above explain in more detail and are available at our monthly meetings. Our speaker, Dean Ferrell, themed his program on Photoshop Tips and Tricks. Dean is a professional photographer with broad talents in landscape, Fine art, Fashion, Autos all featured in a dozen different websites. Dean has been widely published and teaches workshops. His Tips and Tricks included his use of the filmstrip view in Bridge together with the numerous keystroke shortcuts. Dean described his method of eliminating chromatic aberration, a method of simple but numerous steps which he offered in an email upon request. Also demonstrated was his method of whitening teeth, and his creative use of the Liquify tool. Most outstanding was his process in creating a Composite. Again, numerous steps but with outstanding results. Dean’s email address is dean@orcatekk.com. Many thanks to Dean for sharing his Tips and Tricks. Don’t forget his offer to provide notes on creating the composite. DIG Meeting, August 02, 2016 President Dave Erickson called the meeting to order and recognized guests. Dave announced that 2017 dues will increase to $50 due to increased costs of Library rental. DIG remains open to suggestions as to a less expensive meeting venue. Phillip Lowe, a lifelong resident of Arizona, a conservationist and artist who holds a Masters Degree in Wildlife Biology was our guest speaker. Phillip is currently a contributing photographer to Arizona Highways, AAA Highroads, Arizona Wildlife Views, and numerous local and regional news publications. He has been a volunteer photographer for Boyce Thompson arboretum for many years. He is well known for his images of small plants and animals as well as his vast panoramas. Phillip discussed his Canon equipment, Post Processing and Workflow. A Photoshop user almost exclusively, he uses mostly levels and instead of Saturation, rather relying mainly on Match Color for small amounts of color boost. For printing his work, Phillip uses Canvas Maker, Bay Photo, Tempe Camera and in Mesa, he works with Bob at Fayville Photo. Phillip shared some of his techniques he employs to produce successful images. A technique he often employs is Focus Blending which requires taking a great many shots of a static subject at all focal planes. Once in Photoshop, go to Filter < Stack < Load Files into Stack, Select< Select All < Edit When banding occurs in blended shots, Phillip finds going into the Filter menu and using a degree of Spatter will fix the problem. An unlikely fix for increased sharpening, he finds using Gaussian blur to blur fractured or exaggerated pixels will “sharpen” a blurred image. He cites the example of his 6 Megapixel camera producing an image yielding a sharp to the eye 72×56 image at 300 dpi. An image this size is typically viewed at some distance, hence the effect of sharpening. Phillip highly recommends the Arboretum for a variety of shooting opportunities. Valley of Fire in Nevada is an outstanding shooting venue and is best visited in October and November. After sundown shots have worked well for him here. Phillip also suggests Bryce in the winter for great opportunities. Visit his Website and Gallery for a look at his stunning work. DIG Meeting, June 14, 2016 The meeting was called to order by Richard Buchbinder in the absence of the president. Guests and a new member were introduced. Announcements included photo tours offered by Richard Buchbinder and Rose Erato for the upcoming year, including: >>>Photo Tour of Cuba, March 6-15, 2017, details at: http://phototc.com/tours/details/cuba-before-exposure >>>African Photo Safari, May 2017. For details, contact: rose@roseerato.com or rb@richardbuchbinder.com Guest Speaker, Larry Lindahl, professional and nature photographer, an "Arizona Highways" contributing photographer, began his presentation with a slide show of images contained in his two books, “Secret Sedona: Sacred Moments in the Landscape” and "The Ancient southwest: A Guide to Archaeological sites". Larry’s work has been exhibited by the Smithsonian Institution and his photography has appeared in numerous book and magazines. His two books illustrate the advice he provided us today which is to “collect a body of work, a single theme” for a time when the best can be selected and assembled into a book for publication. His suggestions followed the topics of macro photography, museum photography, State Parks, Museum (when allowed) or focusing on any theme that appeals to the photographer. Some valuable tips Larry suggested included creating one’s own backdrops for example, using watered down acrylics on canvas as an interesting backdrop for macro, using a blue lazer light to accent a subject, such as pottery or other objects. Larry believes in using home grown or home crafted props for example, he used translucent plastic notebook dividers (office supply stores!) as filters instead of costly professional ones. His example was a piece of pottery photographed with a 30 second exposure using first an orange filter focused on the subject, quickly followed by the blue filter as a vignette—a breathtaking result. Other tips included using a tee shirt as a polarizing filter around the lens to keep out extraneous light. When possible use complimentary color variations such as blue-orange when photographing stills. When sharpening, sharpen only the black layer in channels and experiment with using wide angle to a greater degree. Larry Lindahl’s presentation was outstanding and motivating. Visit his Gallery and schedule of workshops both in Sedona where he resides as well as throughout the state and elsewhere. Simply Google his name and view his photography and check out his workshop schedule. DIG Meeting, May 3, 2016 "Good morning and welcome to DIG where photographers learn to make a photograph all that it can be” was the message from our President, Dave Erickson. Dave announced that we would be seeking suggestions for new venue for our DIG meetings as the rental at Mustang Library had increased significantly. Dave also invited anyone interested in joining the Leadership Council to do so. Finally, the June meeting will take place on the second Tuesday, June 14. Commercial and Fine Art photographer, Canon Explorer of Light and educator, Joel Grimes was our guest speaker. Joel presented a slide show of his portraits featuring the well-known "Joel Grimes look", a technique which he later demonstrated in detail. Being color blind, he has developed his own involved method of optimizing his images, focusing not on color, but on tonal values. His portraits were most often sports figures, typically black models featured in sports arenas or cityscapes. Joel is a big advocate of the use of HDR where bracketing ISO top, middle and bottom of both the background and then the model separately, collaging them together and lastly applying a grunge texture and vignette. This intensive work flow produces a very unique look that has earned him a reputation for a high degree of creativity—hence the "Joel Grimes Look". Joel went into great detail about Bit Depth, the amount of information that represents the number of colors and tones in a capture. Camera captures today are 14 Bit however Photoshop brings the image in as 8 bit srgb. It is important to convert to 14 Bit in Camera Raw Preferences. His point here is, and his examples show, that the more bit depth you have, the higher quality image you have to work with. His use of bracketing ISO, individually photographing head, mid-section and lower body yields 9 images which when combined in HDR yield three 32bit images! Next step before final touches is to stitch using Bridge or Raw Converter, the three processed segments into a single 32 bit image. His ISO brackets generally are 50-160-320 to cover the spectrum of tonal values. Joel talked about the Cam Ranger, a device tethered to your camera from a tripod that will automatically change your ISO settings. This works for landscapes, not people, for obvious reasons. The Cam Ranger sells for $250. "Be an Artist. Live your dream". Joel stressed the importance of being 'you' not someone else in developing your style of photography. He suggests finding a theme to photograph and photographing hundreds of that subject to create a series. Joel has a great many tutorials, workshop offerings and an outstanding gallery on his Joel Grimes Photography website. His email is joel@joel grimes.com DIG Meeting, April 5,2016 (Notes by Carol Dillon & Carol Budrow) The regular April meeting , called to order by President Dave Erickson, the following announcements were made: All members must go to the DIG Website to register for our Meetup. Soon this will be our DIG groups only communication site. Gary Vargo is planning several photo day trips by van to Tucson including the Desert Museum, Reid Park Zoo, Sweetwater Water Ranch, the Arboretum and San Javier Mission, Contact Gary for all details regarding these day trips at gsvargo@hotmail.com or call 480-529-1239. Don Bierman showed his 11×15 book of photographs published by Adorama. Printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, all double pages are seamless, single prints making strong horizontal images with outstanding impact. Interesting templates are available for layout or you can customize your own. The publisher works with jpegs in Photoshop, Light Room, InDesign, Illustrator, pdfs and offers choices of pearl paper, luster or glossy in addition to Fuji Crystal. The publisher provides twenty choices text as well as background color choices including your own custom color. While the cost is not inexpensive, 11×15, $300, there are discounts for volume orders. Bruce Boyce spoke about Aluminum prints from Aspen Creek Company. The company offers a 20×30 , 1/8 inch rounded corners for example for $119 with a sometime sale for $99.A ½ inch bracket for hanging can be added for an additional $7.50. Shipping is $6.99, wooden crated, any size. Piper Mackay, wildlife photographer was our planned speaker for this meeting, however a fall resulting in broken ribs prevented her timely appearance for her presentation. Her partner in Nature Odyssey Wildlife Tours company did an admirable job in stepping in for Piper. Nathaniel presented previously for DIG where his impressive credentials are noted. The subject of his program was his superb collection of images of Iceland, a destination he has visited numerous times. Nathaniel's narration of each image provided much information valuable to the photographer wanting to make the most of photographing in a challenging environment. He made the point of describing the huge diversity of landscape in a small geographic area as well as the frequent changing weather as contributing to making extraordinary images. In keeping with that, he stresses there is NO Bad Weather, only bad gear. In other words the photographer must go prepared for extremes in cold temps. His post processing is minimal relying on Levels, Contrast and Vibrance. He looks for small unique compositions everywhere in addition to the grand landscapes. Our thanks to Nathaniel for stepping up with an outstanding, spontaneous program. The following are notes provided by Carol Budrow as Carol Dillon was unable to remain for the conclusion of the program. Our speaker managed an appearance after her unfortunate accident, and delivered a really interesting program with the promise for a return engagement. Piper Mackay a cultural, documentary and African wildlife photographer www.pipermackayphotography.com. Her photography emphasizes dramatic lighting in the field. What to consider when creating photos in the field: What's my Background? Tips: Put subject at least 5' from background Shoot wide open for soft look What's my Light? Tips: Use cloudy white balance setting in harsh light Underexpose about 1.67 stops to bring dark tones down in harsh light Use side light when working with live subjects Make optimum use of all lighting conditions Create Motion and Emotion Tips: Fast shutter speed to stop action Slow down shutter speed and follow motion of subject to create background blur (panning) Piper plans to return to DIG to do more in –depth presentation, including sharing more of her shooting skills and post production techniques. Thanks go to Carol Budrow for an excellent job delivering highlights of this excellent speaker. DIG Meeting, March 1, 2016 DIG's March Meeting took place at Paul Markow Photography location. At Paul's invitation, the group assembled in his studio to learn techniques of food photography. Paul describes himself as an Organic photographer who is not concerned with complex commercial lighting, but rather utilizes natural light, diffusers and reflectors, LED lights combined with window light and top down all sharp photography. Paul begins his set up with looking for the source of light, the direction of the light and the color temperature of that light. In keeping with organic shooting, he might use a directional panel and or scrims over the product or face of an individual before he pronounces it "good to go". Paul carries with him small LED lights, 3200-5700 color temperature to supplement the natural light source when necessary. Impact. Paul stresses impact is the most important thing in a photograph. This is his most important criteria in judging photography. The image must cause the viewer to want to look at the subject matter. When shooting food photography, he stresses the need to shoot down on the subject, shoot food that is underprepared in order not to dry out. "Eliminate the background stuff because, food is what I'm trying to show here. Paul shoots with a 24-105 lens, usually F4 and uses the "background stuff" as soft texture only and emphasizes making only the food sharp. That picture must be one word only— "Delicious". Crop only in camera—use all your pixels. Further suggestions: use the fashion tilt, not just vertical or just horizontal, avoid putting just the model's head in the whole picture, and unless the whole body is part of "who you are", refrain from putting the whole body in the pictures. This applies to both food and faces. Previsualize the image. Know the direction of light in summer and in winter planning your shoot. Do your basic metering and then shoot in manual. Note that pollutants aid in photography. When shooting portraits, advise client to 'lean in' towards the camera to avoid the double chin, and keep in mind, over the shoulder shots are the most flattering, Paul is known as an outstanding food photographer and together with Arizona Highways's special project producing a book on leading restaurants throughout the state and another on premier Chefs in Arizona, he shot those restaurant’s food traveling to Kingman, Williams, Grand Canyon, Marble Canyon, Page, Phoenix, Tucson, Wickenburg, Cornville, Bisbee Greer, Alpine and Prescott. Having been a commercial photographer for 47 years, he states that he loves his work and plans never to retire! Thanks Paul for an outstanding presentation. DIG Meeting, February 1, 2016 Richard Buchbinder opened the February meeting with the introduction of guests and announcements. The March 1, meeting will be held at an offsite location. Paul Markow will do a presentation on Food Photography at his studio at 2222 E McDowell Road (formerly the Photo Mark building), 2 blocks east of the 101 freeway. A link to a map is forthcoming. Richard Buchbinder and Rose Erato will once again offer an Equestrian Workshop in October. Also announced by Richard and Rose is an African Safari in May of 2017. More details on both at a later date. Creative Live will present a 6 day event on Post Processing beginning February 22. There is a cost for signing on for the week long event however the first presentation of the day is offered free. Check the Creative Live website for exact details. Scott Stulberg, our Guest Speaker, hugely talented and energetic, gave a fast paced and exciting review and overview of Tips, Tricks and Photoshop Techniques. Scott is a contributing writer for Shutterbug Magazine and EOS magazine, Scott has led photography workshops around the globe and teaches digital photography and Photoshop at UCLA Extension, the Julia Dean Photo Workshops in Venice Beach, the Art Wolfe Digital Photography Center in Seattle and at the Sedona Arts Center in Sedona, Arizona, where he lives with his wife. From Microsoft, Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Conde Nast Traveler and ABC News to greeting cards, calendars, bill boards and book covers, his images are used internationally and are in collections all over the world. Scott began with an outstanding slideshow of his work followed by how the images were post processed, if at all, and details of how he uses plugins, actions, presets, blend modes and more. He highly recommends plugins as huge time savers but explains that tweaking and adjusting optimizes to his own tastes. Topaz, Nik Silver Effects and Color Effects, Aurora, On1, Alien Skin, Galaxy, and Flaming Pear are among those he mentions using most. Careful attention is given to Sharpening to just the correct amount to preserve reality. Together with the Wacom Tablet, Scott uses Photoshop almost exclusively while praising LightRoom as a great program. The Gradient tool, Dodge and Burn tools and the Clone Tool get a lot of play in Scott’s presentation. Finally he described an amazing technique using Scripts and Statistics to stack images into a final one that displays wide dynamic range. Scott was truly a motivating speaker as neither he nor DIG Members wanted to see the two hour presentation close. We hope to have him back again. DIG Meeting, January 5, 2016 President Dave Erickson opened the meeting introducing Susan Q. Byrd who announced the Arizona Fine Art Expo which takes 21 through April 3. The location for this Expo is Jomax and Scottsdale, next to Old MacDonald's Farm. If you attend, mention at the door that you are visiting Susan Byrd and admission is free. Go to ArizonaFineArtExpo.com and click on the artist's name then, click Entertainment for further details. Ed Yanez announced that Friday, January 8, Fountain Hills Community Center is the date and place for the workshop on Luminosity Masks. Ed introduced our guest speaker, Bob Coates, of Bob Coates Photography and Lumix Luminary for Panasonic. A very high energy speaker, Bob's topic centered on the use of textures, blending textures and photo blending. His images illustrated his use of depth, texture and dimension all of which he demonstrated in several images which he gradually built into fine art expressions using as Tools, textures and blending. His technique involved making selections from original images and using Layers and Masks and the tools of his own textures and of blending modes. Finally, he applies what he called Touches to finish off your work of art. Throughout, Bob named a great many sources for tutorials and examples of work from known photographer artists. Bob also stressed the use of "cloning" your entire computer on a regular basis in order to avoid the catastrophe of 'not if but when one loses their hard drive'. His creativity arises from his constant advice to "play" with one’s images using all the methods described i.e., "what if I do this?" "what if I do that?". His multistep images are made simpler when he has created actions for the various steps he employs in his creations. Bob wrapped up the morning with a large expo of micro 4/3rds Lumix cameras. Additionally he showed the two full frame mirrorless Lumix, the G7 and the Gx8 pro versions. Many thanks to this highly informative, skilled photographer and Photoshop- user. Check out: bcphotography.com and 1-bobcoates.artistswebsites.com. Also, successful-photographer.com You may email Bob with questions and comments: bob@bcphotography.com DIG Meeting, December 1, 2015 A number of visitors were introduced and welcomed by President Dave Erickson. This was the annual book showing of the books published by DIG members throughout the year. The books were, as always, beautifully done, inspiring and illustrated the diverse photographic interests of our members. Well done! Comments were taken from the members as to their experiences and recommendations of the publishers they used. Some comments: Blurb has a sale at the beginning of every month. Blurb will print in excess of 100 pages and if using their logo, customer gets a 15% discount. My Publisher has recently merged with another company and is presently behind in filling print orders. Improved technology and support is anticipated. C Graphics Pro is reported to be about one-half the price of other companies. This price is offered if you request the professional photographer discount. Due to the library tripling the rent for 2016, our dues will increase to $30 per year. Dues are payable to Ed Yanez. Dave Erickson once again put out a call for an equipment custodian to be in charge of our digital equipment. Help is also needed to put up and take down tables after the meeting. Mike Isenberg announced the Luminosity Mask SIG on Friday January 8, to be held at the Community Center of Fountain Hills from 9-6. Bring your lunch. Matt Suess, our speaker today is a photographer, a teacher of ON1 software, and producer of educational videos optimizing your photos using Capture One and ON1 software. Formerly, Matt was a photojournalist in New England but became a Fine Art Landscape Photographer since moving West. Matt offers eight field and software workshops in 2016. See www.MattSuess.com for full information. Matt presented his before and after selected images demonstrating the power of ON1 software. Typically, he processes his raw images in Capture One, imports them into ON1 where he fine tunes them sends and finally to Photoshop to export. ON1 currently sells for $99 (originally $350) with an upgrade for an additional $89. Matt offers 90 downloadable and streaming step by step videos on his website. Coupon Code good through December 6, on1dig35 at learn.mattsuess.com will get you a 35% discount on all online courses and Textures. Thanks to Matt for a very interesting and informative presentation. DIG Meeting, November 3, 2015 The meeting began with several announcements. Reminder, Susan Mathia will offer a day Workshop on Light Room on Friday November 20, 8-2 pm at the Arabian Library. Attendees should bring a lunch and camera with telephoto lens. Cost $75. Contact Mike Isenberg. Luminosity Masking. A day seminar scheduled for January 2016. Contact Mike Isenberg. December meeting will showcase members' books. Coleen Minek-Sperry, returning guest speaker, spoke on Macro Photography—The Joy of Little Things. Beginning with a clarification of what is macro, Coleen declared her favorite lens for macro work is the 16-35 with two extension tubes stacked. She also uses a 24-105 mm. True Macros are defined as 1:4 as 1/4 size accomplished with a close up lens, 1:2 as half size , 1:1 full size and 5:1 simulating microscopic work. Any lens can become a macro with Extension tubes or a Closeup lens attached between the camera and the lens. Coleen demonstrated using her Manfrotto tripod for macro work. First the swings the center column out horizontally, lowering the tripod as low as possible, using Live View and a cable release, the equipment is inches off the ground. Her Tips for successful Macro shooting are: 1. First, understand the behavior of the subject 2. Visualization or dry shooting before going into the field. 3. Compose for balance or the Golden Ratio. 4. Visual Weight–create visual pathways that guide the viewer into the frame using diagonals, horizontals, or the Dutch Tilt by turning the camera right by several degrees. 5. Create 3 layers—foreground, mid ground and background. 6. Vertical or Horizontal orientation. 7. Go beyond eye level—get below subject and shoot up. Live View helps here. 8. Create shapes with light—move around the subject to use light to reveal shape and texture. 9. Modify the existing light through the use of reflectors and or diffusers. With flash, use high speed sync for artistic effect. Use flash to stop action. 10. Expose properly. If shooting raw, expose slightly to the right. Shooting jpeg, watch histogram for bell shaped curve. Keep lens parallel to the subject and shoot multiple times. Windy conditions dictate setting camera in Continuous Mode, a wide view, faster shutter speed and ISO. Also Use flash set to second curtain sync. Go to Coleens’s website to check out her books and blog. www.cms-photo.com Many thanks to Coleen for another outstanding presentation. DIG Meeting, October 6, 2015 President Dave Erickson opened the meeting with the introduction of Nathanial Smally, DIG member, Professor of photography and Arizona Highways Instructor. Nathaniel outline his bio and credentials and presented information on his upcoming Nature Oddesy Worldwide (NOW) Tours. Check his website www.NOW Tours2NathanielSmalley@gmail.com for details on winter and summer tours or email. Bob Mishkin , our presenter this month. demonstrated photo restoration methods and the tools he uses in correcting tears, creases, deterioration of the image and fading in vintage images. For demonstration purposes Bob used images produced by his photographer father during the American occupation of Japan after the end of World War II. Working with old images Bob begins with digitizing the image in one of several ways, either photographing with a digital camera, scanning the print with a flatbed scanner or employing a graphics house. Using Lightroom 5 Develop Module, Bob relied heavily on the Spot Removal Tool mentioning that this works equally well with Elements, Bridge (ACR) and Photoshop. Using the tool at 2x the image size is very helpful in cleaning up spots in any image. The Visualize Spots Tool , selected from the tool bar below, inverts the image enabling you to see imperfections more clearly. The slider varies the contrast threshold. Check clear in the Visualize checkbox to view the resulting cleaned up image. Navigation Tips rounded out Bob's presentation. He acknowledges much of the information is available on the Adobe LR Help page along with what he has learned from Ben Wilmore and Julianne Kost online tutorials. The second half of the program, Mike Eisenberg made a short presentation of channel masks specifically Tony Kuyper's Luminosity Masking (Goodlight.com). Mike talked through the steps involved in processing an image using channel masking, then explained how to target selected areas of the image for enhancement. Following this Mike showed two videos by Tony Kuyper that illustrated in detail DIG Meeting, June 02, 2015, 2015 Dave Erickson opened the meeting turned over the introduction of our guest speaker, Suzanne Mathia to Program Chair, Mike Isenburg . Suzanne is a Certified Expert in both Photoshop and Lightroom. She conducts workshops in Photography, Photoshop, Lightroom and offers Private Instruction in these areas as well. Suzanne is a contributing editor for Arizona Highways and other publications. Take an imperfect image to perfection was the topic of Suzanne's presentation. She emphasizes getting it right in the camera and illustrated her point by saying one’s raw file data is like filling a bucket with bits and bytes—bring it all home! Using the acronym, CAFÉ, Composition, Aperture, Focus and Exposure, the speaker elaborated at length her recommendations for bringing home the best raw data possible to achieve a successful image in post processing. ETTR, expose everything to the right on the histogram is another acronym she offers to insure the best raw file. All images need Post Processing. Image cleanup, lens correction for distortion, capture sharpening and output sharpening all are critical to that successful image. Her workflow going forward after application of Levels, Color Balance and Vibrance, she calls "the small stuff". The small stuff includes local adjustments in Hue and Saturation, Exposure, Dodge and Burn using the adjustment brush, and finally creative Sharpening. Her technique of Creative Sharpening undoubtedly brings the image up a notch. Some of Suzanne's tips using Lightroom include turning off the Graphics processor in Preferences allowing the program to run faster. Another tip was her technique of using only two images as best for HDR, eliminating the image at the "0" setting. The success of this depends on exposing properly for the highlights and then properly exposing for the shadows thus, eliminating the ghosting that sometimes appears with combining multiple images. She recommends leaving HDR setting on Auto, the result being a raw image. Further, she never makes a virtual copy to work on an image. She often hits the reset button to go back and play around with other techniques on an image. She recommends turning the adjustments on and off all during the workflow to monitor the changes. Always watch the histogram. Suzanne feels it is very important to walk away from your work and look at it again the next day. Often one will see corrections that need to be made not previously evident. Finally comes the output sharpening and then close. Be mindful of the paper size and type parameters for the printer and the different guidelines for publications.Suzanne’s high energy presentation was hugely interesting and much appreciated by everyone. DIG Meeting, May 05, 2015, 2015 Guests at the DIG May meeting were introduced by Camille Massey. President Dave Erickson invited member Pat Beckley to offer his thoughts on the new Lightroom Creative Cloud 6.0 Among the new features are the use of the gradient filter in combination with the brush tool, facial recognition, faster speed, the switch allowing the use of ram with the video card instead of ram on the computer, panoramas remain Raw in Ver. 6 instead of becoming Tiffs in Photoshop, expanded music choices in the Slide show module, HDR providing more than 2 stops dynamic range, greater assistance in Creating a Book. These improvements require a 64 bit processor. Upgrade fee is $79 unless one has subscribed to Creative Cloud. Mike Isenberg is seeking suggestions for future programs. Some being considered are iphone post processing and the art of blending. Guest Speaker Guy Reed of Tempe Camera, Director of Education at Tempe Camera, spoke on Mirrorless Camera Technology.Guy presented an indepth presentation on Mirrorless Technology regarding camera size, batteries, lenses,, sensors and sensor size, focus, vertical and horizontal lens stabilization. Guy brought models of the major brands of mirrorless camera for members to handle and ask questions about the features offered by each. Features vary widely and not shared necessarily by all cameras which makes the camera of choice one that requires some study. Some of those features which vary are live view, WiFi, sensor size, built in transmitter, touch screen, built in HDR, transmitters for off camera flash, interchangeable lenses or not. Several points Guy particularly emphasized are the importance of a calibrated lens, have a pro do this for you, understand and use the Histogram, purchase the latest technology for better processors and better sensors, mind the hand held rule for shutter speed, and take note of existing rebates.Many thanks to Guy Reed of Tempe Camera for this very informative presentation and discussion. DIG Meeting, April 07, 2015 The April meeting was opened by DIG President, Dave Erickson with the announcement of several guests in attendance. Richard Buchbinder commented on the success of Steve Burger's Printing Class. Program Chair Mike Eisenberg introduced our guest speaker, Jeff Kida, Contributing Editor of the Arizona Highways Magazine. Jeff began with recounting his longtime association with the magazine beginning with an internship in 1978. His photography has been published around the world including the New York and L.A. Times and Time Magazine. His work has varied from documenting a Medical Mission, ranching, horses, rodeos, portraits of Arizona County Sheriffs, Joe Richards of Flagstaff and Buck Buchannan of Prescott. Richard Fisher, train engineer of the Grand Canyon Railroad was another portrait project of merit. His travel photography is named "Through Each Other's Eyes". Among persons he mentions whom he admires, been mentored by or with whom he has photographed are Josef Muench, Ed McCain, Ansel Adams, Ray Manley, David Muench. Of David Muench, he emphasizes his borrowing from Asian Art, abandoning the rule of thirds, his use of backlight, high horizons, large foregrounds and the importance of pre-visualizing. A new era of photography evidences itself in the work of Bob and Sue Clemmons, Jack Dykinga, Adam Schalau and hosts of others. Jeff elaborated on Photo Editing today and provided great advice for those interested in getting published in Arizona Highways. The Call for Calendar opportunity is November each year. Shoot what you love, Jeff suggests, but try to take your subject to the next step. Property releases are generally not required as the images are not for sale but rather the magazine is "selling the state". Submissions can be jpegs, 4 to 5 are acceptable, shoot in RGB and email to jkida@azdot.gov. Other photographers Jeff admires and encourages our looking up are Dawn Kisch for her tiny macros, Paul Gill for his artistic, soft macros and patterns, Joel Grimes for his black and white studio strobe work, Shane McDermitt for his soft light predawn and after sunset images, Robert McDonald for his Grand Falls photographs, George Stocking, Wes Timmerian, Greg Heisler, Joseph Campbell and Gary Ladd .Thanks to Jeff Kida for this outstanding program both interesting and inspiring. Special thanks to Mike Eisenberg and his Program Committee for their ongoing efforts to provide great programs. DIG Meeting, March 03, 2015 President Dave Erickson opened our March meeting introducing one new member, Fred Perrin, and several guests. Richard Buchbinder announced Steve Burger's Print Workshop is filled. Steve's facility is part of Image Craft located at 34th Street and Broadway in Phoenix. His website is ProDigitalImage.com. Richard Buchbinder and Rose Erato are conducting their African Safari tour again May 17-30, 2015 in Tanzania. For information, contact them at rb@richardbuchbinder.com, or rose@roseerato.com. Adam Jones, Canon Explorer of Light will conduct a workshop at Tempe Camera on March 27. Those wishing to attend, go to the Tempe Camera website for a free electronic ticket.Dave announced that gaps remain in June, August and September programming. If anyone had suggestions, please let either Dave Erickson or Mike Isenburg know. Mike Isenberg, Program Chairman, introduced today’s guest speaker, Tony Kuyper. Tony is a resident of Colorado and renowned photographer of the Southwest. Working on Luminosity Masks since 2006, Tony created a custom actions panel for use in Photoshop to make tonal based adjustments to his images. This highly specialized panel features masks in varying tones of lights and darks offers a highly sophisticated level of control for images. Once these Luminosity selections have been created, any one of them, once applied to the image can now be adjusted as desired using Curves. Adjusting the midtones within these selections is the heart of the Luminosity Mask. Once the mask is applied, painting with a white or black brush , the burn and dodge technique, allows the photographer to bring to life his most perfect image. Tony's website, Goodlight.us is a treasure trove of blog, information, tutorials, an outstanding gallery, and a set of actions that he offers for free. The entire Luminosity Mask technique with the panel of actions is also available for a most reasonable price. A set of actions is also available for Photoshop Elements. A huge thank you to Tony Kuyper for this outstanding program. He has provided us with maybe the ultimate tool for perfecting our images. Appreciation is also extended to Mike Isenberg for his efforts in providing quality programs such as we have enjoyed already this year! DIG Meeting, February 02, 2015 President Dave Erickson opened the meeting with the introduction of several guests and reminder of the printing class offered by Steve Burger. The class is $130 per person with limited sized classes offered on three separate dates, February 7, 21, 28. For exact details, please check the DIG Website. Dave introduced our guest speaker today, Joel Wolfson, pioneer in digital photography, educator, author, workshop leader and travel photographer worldwide. Joel maintains an impressive list of clients nationwide and currently works with Arizona Highways and represents Topaz Software. Today’s presentation began with his own artistic images of abstracts and people and places around the globe together with how and with what gear he travels. Lending some of his tips for travel photography, Joel states the obvious: Be there. Tell a Story. Wise and helpful is to learn a few words of the native language, chiefly, "may I" and "Thank you" which most often grants you that photograph. Travel with model releases in all languages. "Duo Lingo", a travel app for iphone provides phrases in other languages. When weather and environment aren't optimal, he closes in on small details of landscape and architecture creating very artful images. Tinkering with White Balance can alter uninteresting lighting conditions. Important suggestion for backup is to download your images during a trip onto a memory card and mail it back home. Helpful for inspiration is to create an assignment for yourself. Finally, Joel provided his workflow including the use of various Topaz plugins. He uses Adjust and Clarity extensively. At the heart of Adjust is the Adaptive Exposure slider which isolates regions in the image for optimizing. Clarity is primarily a contrast adjustment tool providing a degree of sharpening and a sense of depth. Continue to monitor the histogram, he emphasizes. Topaz gave to five lucky raffle winners free copies of their choice of software including the entire bundle to one individual. Congratulations to Bob McMillan, Bill McGrath, Bob Mishkin, Marilyn Clark and Rose Erato —the big winner! Check out JoelWolfson.com, also Joel's Blog and his tutorial appearances on Topaz Utube. Joel informs us that upon ordering Topaz software, mentioning his name earns a 15% discount. Many thanks to Joel for his outstanding presentation. Joel Wolfson, a Southwest native, is published internationally and his roster of notable clients include Newsweek, Elle, Seventeen, Houghton Mifflin, Family Circle, and corporate clients such as Apple, AT&T, 3M, United Airlines, Chase and Pillsbury. He is one of the pioneers of digital photography. His technical articles on digital imaging have been translated for use in more than 30 countries. Yet he is best known for his artistic images of nature’s fleeting moments as well as abstracts and unexpected views of everyday places around the globe.Joel has also been an educator since he started teaching photography in 1985 at the University of Minnesota while working on his degree there. He conducted digital photography seminars for Apple and other corporations starting in the early 90s. He has presented at national conferences, written articles, and in addition to teaching his own photography workshops worldwide he works with Arizona Highways, Topaz, and other acclaimed affiliates. He enjoys sharing his experience and skills with his workshop participants. His goal is to make learning and improving one's photography easy, fun and rewarding. DIG Meeting, January 06, 2015 Dave Erickson opened our January 2015 meeting with several announcement. Note that he February meeting will be the first Monday of the month, February 2. Wes are reminded that dues for 2015 may be mailed to Ed Yanez, 5323 West Bloomfield road, Glendale, AZ 85304. The club is still in need of an equipment custodian. The responsibility involves getting the equipment to the monthly meetings. Mike Eisenburg, Program Chairman has been hard at work organizing our programs for the upcoming months. Many thanks to him for this difficult job. Mike announces these upcoming guest speakers: February, Joel Wolfson, travel photographer. Joel will demonstrate Topaz software. A raffle for Topaz software will accompany his presentation. March meeting will feature Tony Kruger demonstrating Luminosity Masking.April. Jeff Kidda of the Arizona Highways magazine will discuss "How to get your images into the magazine" May will feature Guy Reed with a presentation on Mirrorless Cameras. Mark Laverman, guest speaker today presented an outstanding and fascinating program on Drone Photography or "What if Your Camera could Fly?" Mark and his two sons have entered on the ground floor of commercial drone photography earning themselves a leading position in this relatively new industry. Using the DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ Quadrocopter, they have produced outstanding videos, beautifully edited and set to music for individuals and private companies. Using a VR gimbal mechanism, a 2.8, 15mm lens, 1/2.3 sensor, the camera rotates 360 degrees, offering full view due to the drone legs retracting, while communicating with an Ipad Air2 as well as the iphone. Mark’s outstanding program concluded with a showing of the video of Wild Horse Ranch in Wyoming with music from "the Mission". Following the break, member Susan Byrd presented the final part of her November program demonstrating her techniques of ridding the background in the photo with the focus on the subject. Susan produces beautiful photos showcasing the images typical of the old West. Thank you Susan for sharing your knowledge and techniques. DIG Meeting, December 2, 2014 President Dave Erickson/ opened our meeting announcing the 2015 Membership dues are due at this time. Current members' dues are $10 and new member dues are $20. Please mail your check made payable to Ed Yanez, 5323 W. Bloomfield Road, Glendale, Az 85304. Traditionally, our December meeting is the month our members exhibit the photo books they have created throughout the year. Each year the books become more beautiful, more sophisticated and 2014 was a banner year. World travels, regional collections, iconic photos, animals, people and more dominated the book subjects. Time never allows us to sufficiently peruse all that is presented but we admire the efforts of our talented fellow DIG members. Thanks to all who brought their books and for the inspiration they provide. Kurt Hasper, DIG member for several years, presented the third in his series of Book Publishing. Today’s presentation was designing Creative Photo Pages. Kurt brings a rich background of experience gained in his years in Clinical Engineering and Software Development. Kurt created many technical presentations, local to national, wrote and co-produced an award winning screen play for a film for a National Symposium. Kurt's knowledge and experience enabled him to merge his extensive Photoshop skils into presentations and post processing for groups and individuals from beginners to professionals. Each of Kurt's three sessions can be accessed at the Digital Imaging Group – DIG. Then click on More and then Files. Thank you very much, Kurt for all your efforts in providing these three in-depth presentations on the subject of Book Publishing. DIG Meeting, November 04, 2014 Dave Erickson opened The DIG November meeting with the announcement of the Adobe Photoshop Creativity Tour, Featuring Ben Wilmore. The event is scheduled on December 12 at the downtown Phoenix Sheraton Hotel, 9-5. Reserve by calling 800-201-7323, $89 or visit kelbyonelive.com until December 2. Dave is appealing to the DIG members for someone to come forward and assume the duty of Custodian of the Digital Equipment. This entails delivering the digital projector and cables to our meetings and safekeeping it at home. This would take a big responsibility off of Dave and others charged with scheduling and running the meetings.Dave further discussed the importance to DIG members of the SIG groups, if they should be continued and if so what topics are desired. One such topic is Printing, not only from Light Room on one's own printer but, printing preparations for sending to a professional lab. Other ideas for SIGs are invited. Our speaker this month is free lance photographer and writer, Coleen Miniuk-Sperry. Leaving the corporate life several years ago, Coleen has published photographs in National Geographic, Arizona Highways, Outdoor Photographer, National Parks Traveler to name a few as well as co-authored Wild in Arizona, a wildflower photographers’ guide and Photographing Acadia National Park where she has three times been, Artist-in-Residence in Maine. Her list of workshops, exhibitions and recognitions is endless. Coleen's program delivered with a tremendous amount of passion and energy stressed the successful photographer's need for first, Visualizing the image he wants to make, Conceptualizing that image or dry shooting, thinking about the camera settings or photographing with the mind and finally Designing the image or applying the "what if" I did this or "what if" I did that scenarios to the shot.Post processing is short and simple for Coleen. She relies on levels and curves and likes the luminosity mask used by Tony Sweet. In a word, Coleen urges us to fill our brain with knowledge about whatever our passion is, engage the environment of our subject we are about to shoot, learn every detail of the camera so that it becomes muscle memory. Coleen shared tips and quotes from the many photographers, scientists and authors she has read and admired. Her success and zest for the art of photography can best be summed up: "Luck follows the prepared" Louis Pasteur. Thank you, Coleen for your outstanding presentation. Her books, Wild in Arizona: Photographing Arizona’s Wildflowers A Guide to When, Where, and How co-authored with Paul Gill and her latest Photographing Acadia National Park: the Essential Guide to When, Where and How are available online and at bookstores. Notes earlier than November 04, 2014 meeting will be posted later on
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